Relationship between cytokine gene polymorphisms and risk of postoperative pneumonia with esophageal cancer

We retrospectively evaluated the relationship between cytokine gene polymorphisms and development of postoperative pneumonia after esophagectomy.

In 120 patients who underwent esophagectomy, serum samples were obtained to measure levels of serum interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 at four time points (preoperatively, postoperative day (POD)0, POD1, and POD3). DNA extracted from peripheral blood in all patients was analyzed to determine polymorphisms of cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α -1031 T/C, IL-1β -511C/T, IL-6 -634C/G, and IL-10 -819 T/C.

Postoperative pneumonia arose in 34 patients (28.3 %). Perioperative serum IL-10 levels were significantly higher for IL-10 -819 C/T + C/C genotypes than for T/T genotypes (POD0 16.7 ± 2.84 vs. 8.54 ± 0.87 pg/ml, p = 0.0002; POD1 14.0 ± 2.64 vs. 8.8 ± 0.87 pg/ml, p = 0.0143; POD3 8.9 ± 2.67 vs. 4.4 ± 0.52 pg/ml, p = 0.0076). The frequency of the IL-10 -819 T/T genotype was significantly higher in patients with postoperative pneumonia than in patients without pneumonia (p = 0.0323). Multivariate analysis of factors such as sex, smoking, length of operation, field of lymph node dissection, and IL-10 polymorphism identified IL-10 polymorphism as independent predictor of postoperative pneumonia.

Patients with IL-10 -819 T/T genotype may be at high risk for postoperative pneumonia after esophagectomy.